


A Game of Pretend

by Interjection



Category: Hermitcraft RPF, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Camera Accounts?, Dragons, No beta we die like Hermits testing Zedaph’s Sky-High Fly-By Don’t-Die door, an exploration of how spectator mode would work lore wise, but never lessons, if you consider lore implications, if you think about it the way players treat mobs is kinda f-cked up, no camera accounts as characters, zedaph learns facts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:47:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28317714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Interjection/pseuds/Interjection
Summary: “Hey, did you know that if you focus on a mob while you’re in spectator mode, you gointothe mob? And then youbecomethe mob? Pretty cool, right?”“Zedaph, please don’t try anything stupid.”In which Zedaph tries to become the ender dragon, and it doesn’t go so well.
Relationships: impulseSV & Zedaph (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 74





	A Game of Pretend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Leopardmask](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leopardmask/gifts).



> Written for Leopardmask, for the NHO Secret Santa event!

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Then again, that’s what Zedaph always told himself.

It wasn’t his fault, really, though! The dragon had just flown around the island, looking all menacing and powerful and - Zedaph’s thoughts - he couldn’t really control them. Everyone knew how it got, when they just _think_ of an idea and their mind refuses to let go of and before they knew it - well. Things happened.

_Right?_

Camera perspectives were weird. Players had the ability to leave their physical body behind, to float around and see and hear things while unable to interact with the world in any way. It was a useful ability, to be sure. Especially with a world as detail-oriented as Hermitcraft.

Scar described it as “detaching their souls from their body,” but what did Scar know? It wasn’t like he could do it the same way. 

Zedaph disagreed, and thought it was more like their entire consciousness got shoved out of them and inhabited some ghostly version themselves until they descended back into physical again. Less “souls,” and more “everything that’s not the physical part of them,” which Zedaph thought was much, much more than just a soul. And it came with a lot more chills and pain than what Scar, presumably, went through.

What he hadn’t realized until recently, however, was that they didn’t always have to return to _their_ body.

That particular revelation had come the day Zedaph was, as an invisible spectator, poking around in one of his contraptions to find an annoyingly buggy (haha, buggy) mistake, and accidentally shoved himself into a passing bee.

It must have been one of the original ones to escape the hive. How it had flown and bumbled its way into that complex maze of redstone, Zedaph still didn’t know, but the next thing he _did_ know was that he was now a bee. With buzzy bee wings and a rotund, wobbly body. 

And man, bee vision was _weird_ , all trippy perspectives and hexagons and blurry edges, and he _knew_ there was something strange in the way their eyes were made up and hah! He was right!

He was also a bee. Hm.

Zedaph had buzzed around for a while and finally squeezed through the exit with a new dusting of redstone clinging to his fuzzy body, and then he had begun imagining the possibilities because _wow!_ This was _possible!_ He could _possess other mobs_ and _control their bodies_ and _how did no one ever tell him this?_

So with mild difficulty, he detached himself from the bee and went off to pursue other mobs in the name of science. 

Lesson learned: Creepers were uncomfortable and scratchy to be in, in a way which shivered down to his bones long after Zedaph left with the sensation that it was all really, really wrong and broken, and perhaps Doc was starting to make more sense now.

Lesson learned: Dolphins were fun to swim around with, and as, but they were also not nearly as dumb as some other mobs and the fun stopped when the rest of the pod realized their friend had been taken over by an imposter, and proceeded to try and kill him. 

Lesson learned: On the contrary, a polar bear’s mother doesn’t recognize when their child has been forcibly overridden by a foreign player’s consciousness and will continue to lick and groom them. It actually felt kinda good and Zedaph was tempted to try that one again. Why not? It was weird, but he just wished people would cuddle with him more!

Except, Zedaph never really learned _lessons_ , only _rules,_ and the only rules he abided by were the ones he had no choice in. That meaning, the Rules of the universe, which even then he often subverted if he could get away with it.

Which was why he had decided to conquer the big guy. Or gal. Or… dragon. Did dragons have genders? It wasn’t like the concept particularly mattered to mobs. There was only ever _one_ dragon, presumably.

As soon as the portal spat him out, Zedaph flew over to an empty stretch of endstone and promptly surrounded himself in dirt.

Then came the fun part. With a familiar popping sensation, he was in spectator mode.

His target was, of course, the ender dragon. People always talked about having the dragon as a pet, but wouldn’t it be cool to _be_ the dragon? Cut out the middleman and do the fiery breath thing himself? Zedaph could be the - the heroic dragon in that legend about a king and prince fighting the nether hordes, or something!

Well, Hermitcraft probably wouldn’t appreciate a dragon flying around “saving” people, anymore than they did with the likes of worm man or poultry man. But that was okay! He could be a _dragon_ , so why not? 

Turns out, the dragon really, _really_ didn’t appreciate being body snatched. 

Zedaph hadn’t paid much mind to what happened to the _mob’s_ consciousness when he overtook them, but he was forced to now. He could hear the dragon’s furious roars echoing in his ears, feel the thrum of an intense, frantic heartbeat pounding against a foreign intruder.

But a player’s will always comes out on top, and eventually Zedaph was left in control of a gigantic ender dragon with only a thrashing force locked away deep inside him.

And a headache. A throbbing headache. He had a feeling he was breaking the Rules again. 

_But._ He was a dragon! _The ender dragon!_ This was totally worth a headache. 

Zedaph cautiously flapped his wings. _Wings!_ Actual, huge, leathery black wings!

The air was cold, and he felt the chill all the way down to his bones in a way he never would in his human body. That was another thing Zedaph had learned - he experienced everything like the mob would.

The stillness of the End was cut through once again with some flapping, and to his delight, Zedaph realized he was lifting off the ground. He’d flown before, as a bee or parrot, but the sheer amount of _power_ that coursed through every movement was new. 

It was _exhilarating._ Zedaph felt like he could conquer anything in the world, with the strange magic that held his form together. So many new tests to do!

With a few faster flaps he was looping and twirling in the air with a natural instinct, the endermen becoming tiny spots of black beneath him. 

Zedaph did the approximation of a dragon grin, and felt a building pressure in his throat. He let it continue, directed it, aimed it down - and the dragon’s purple fire shot from his mouth.

A scattering of wild screeches tore across the empty void of space around him, the dying wails of endermen powerless against their ruler.

Zedaph roared, laughter bubbling inside of him. The once muted End air now felt sharp and free as he flew faster, and faster, and _faster_ , a blur against the dimension’s endless void. 

This was _the best._

He spent the next few hours giggling further in his mind as the enderman fell before him. Who needed an enderman farm when they could do this?

...there was another contraption idea to add! Build an area for enderman to spawn and gather in, trap the dragon and use it to kill them when he needed pearls! 

Why had no one ever announced this was possible before?

Zedaph quickly discovered that the crystal’s healing worked on him too, as they healed any damage the endermen did to him faster than it could be dealt, the few times he swooped down to ground level.

So maybe he was having lots of fun charging through endermen hordes and throwing scores of them into the air. And flinging fireballs everywhere. So what?

It was 3 hours or so in, when Zedaph was circling the perimeter and wondering if he should fly to the outer islands, that it happened. He couldn’t _see_ his communicator in this mode, but he could still access it mentally, with it being linked to a player’s code and all.

_Zedaph was slain by endermen._

Oh dear. His fireballs - they must have destroyed the box of dirt he had built. And an enderman or two must have seen his eyes.

Zedaph turned towards the direction of the portal, only to find an empty bedrock fountain.

Oh, right. The portal only opens when the ender dragon is dead.

Somewhere deep inside of his body, Zedaph swore he could _feel_ the ender dragon smirking.

Well, he could technically access the chat and type a message, once he got out of the mob.

Zedap concentrated, forcing that pushing, lifting sensation that came with leaving a body behind. He waited for that familiar popping feeling that signaled he’d left-

Nothing. 

He tried again. 

Still nothing.

Well, this wasn’t good.

Zedaph flew around the island, dodging erratically around the pillars as his mind raced faster than that time he and Mumbo had gotten high off redstone honey tea. 

Why didn't it work? What was happening? It couldn’t be something to do with time, as he'd spent an entire day and night as a dolphin and hadn’t had trouble then. None of the other mobs had given him this issue!

Zedaph tried again, and once again there was nothing. It was like - like his soul was _glued_ to ender dragon’s form. 

As he curled around the top of a pillar, the reality of it all was starting to sink it.

He was trapped as the ender dragon.

No, this - this couldn’t be! Zedaph did stupid and ill-thought out and rule-breaking things, but he never really had trouble getting himself _out_ of those situations! Why? What had happened?

Zedaph took a deep breath. He tried again.

Nothing. 

Well, they did say insanity was trying the same thing multiple times and expecting a different result. Was this what it was? Had he finally gone insane? What if this was all in his head?

He thumped his head against the obsidian, and hissed in pain when the cold, hard substance didn’t give way. 

...this was _definitely_ not all in his head.

The headache was back, and bigger than before. The thrashing inside of him grew stronger.

Oh, _no._ Zedaph closed his eyes and forcefully pushed it down. He couldn't afford to have the ender dragon take any control of its body, not now. And of course this was just one more problem to add to the table. He hadn’t had any trouble with the mob _fighting back_ before either! 

What was going on?

_Deep breaths, Zed. Calm down. Time to do that “thinking things through” thing Impulse keeps telling you to try._

Right, so what did he know?

He was in spectator mode. He was trapped in the ender dragon’s body. His actual body was in the overworld, in his bed. The ender dragon was fighting him for control of its body back. He couldn’t access the chat to tell anyone.

...that did not help _anything._

Zedaph growled in frustration again, and felt a similar growl deep inside of him, where the dragon’s consciousness was firmly bound.

Well, at least they could agree on something.

There was nothing to do but wait, he realized with a cold, sinking feeling. Wait until someone else came, and killed this body to free him.

The ender dragon’s mind began thrashing again. Zedaph curled around the end crystal that floated almost innocently on the pillar. He lowered his black, scaled head on his back and closed his eyes. 

There wasn’t much else to do but _wait._

Zedaph hated waiting.

* * *

The End was cold. Zedaph had noticed it before, the unnatural stillness of the air and the way all light and warm is devoid from its existence. But he had never paid that fact much mind.

He was paying it mind now.

The exception was the ender crystals, but those drew _in_ warmth instead of radiating it outwards. Being around them was somehow _colder_ , like the last few shreds of Zedaph’s humanity were being drawn into the spinning cube.

It’s almost mesmerizing. He was scared to move forward, at first, but some strange quality lured him closer.

It’s cold, so cold. Zedaph wants to go home. 

He wonders if this is a punishment. It’s not a particularly good one, in most senses - punishments were to prevent repeats, to discourage in one way or another. Zedaph didn’t take to “discouragements” well. He doubted he would be particularly affected in the long term. This was more like a detention, a few hours of unpleasant prohibition before being let free.

But, still. It was cold, and dark, and lonely, and he didn’t like it at all. Perhaps that was the point.

* * *

When the disturbance came, it was quiet at first.

Soft, muffled footsteps. 

A quiet humming.

The sudden, blaring screech of an enderman.

Zedaph flared up his wings faster than one of Tango’s mob launchers. He twisted sharply from his perch on the obsidian tower, and glanced down.

It was Joe, slicing a sword through a tall, gangly shape. It puffed into smoke with a stab, and the pearl was quickly collected.

Zedaph let out a croaked roar. It felt like his throat was scratching through gravel. 

Joe whipped upwards - and to Zedaph’s relief, he drew out a bow. Zedaph flew upwards just as the crystal exploded behind him.

Shards of glass and metal flew into his underside and wings, and a searing blast of energy flung him forwards. Zedaph roared again, this time in wailing pain. 

_It hurts,_ he realized. Being the dragon came with a lot of pain, particularly when players came to kill. 

There were burn marks along his legs too. He could feel that a good chunk of his health was severed by the blast.

Well, that was _good._

He tried his best to keep distance from the other crystals, though he could still feel scales slowly spread over softly healing flesh as the white beams hit him.

Joe was continuing to shoot. One by one, explosions rang through the thin, still atmosphere.

Zedaph caught himself in a few more blasts, hoping to take down his health more quickly, and _dear Mojang why did it hurt so much-_

By the 6th or so crystals he was having trouble keeping flight. The increased headache didn’t help at all.

The ender dragon was very smug again, he could tell. Perhaps that was why he couldn’t leave. It was a boss, after all, and those held more power, more will than other mobs.

It didn’t want him to leave, probably forced his consciousness to stay tethered, because it was _spiteful_. This _was_ a punishment, Zedaph realized, a punishment in the tiny, small way it could manage. A final insult to one of the players that took away everything from it, only to summon and kill it again, and again, and again. It wasn’t like it had much to lose, with its time so numbered.

None of the mobs had much to lose. Players held the ultimate control over everything.

It was _almost_ enough to make Zedaph feel bad.

When the death came, it wasn’t showy or dramatic or thunderingly intense. It was a simple arrow to the flesh as Joe chanced a shot, and with another spurt of blood the code that had held the body together began to crack apart. 

What came afterwards, however, was violent, jarring sensation as Zedaph’s consciousness was forcibly ejected away from a failing host, and suddenly-

-he was falling through the portal-

* * *

Zedaph opened his eyes to a stone roof and the noise of dripping water. When he turned, every muscle and bone and joint of his body, _his_ body, cracked and screamed and was pulled painfully taut with the unused movements. 

When he finally managed to turn around in his bed and pull the blankets over him, he closed his eyes with an exhausted slump and promptly fell asleep again.

* * *

The next day, as his Sun and Moon contraption told him it was just past noon, Zedaph sat up and glanced at his communicator blinking with a long series of messages. Queries of where he was and what he was doing, from Impulse and Tango and a few other Hermits.

They had probably assumed he was busy with some project and too absorbed to say anything back, something rather common among them. Or, even if they had seen his body motionless on the bed, assumed he was in spectator mode for some other reason. 

What should he do today, then?

Zedaph’s mind sank into a lake of mud at the idea of thinking further, whining in protest at the strain. There was still some lingering, phantom pain laced through it as well, pushing and pulling with an irregular agony.

After a few moments of trying and failing to get up and achieve something for the day, Zedaph fell back onto the bed.

The blankets were warm, and comfy, and maybe he should stay in them for a little while longer.

He closed his eyes, and the embracing darkness quickly took hold of him.

* * *

It was another day, in the beginnings of the evening, when he next woke.

Zedaph scratched his head with slow, lethargic fingers. His mind felt clearer, certainly. Less pained.

“You up?”

Zedaph blinked, and turned his head.

Impulse sat a little ways away, leaning against a wall of chests. He seemed concerned, from the pressed lips and eyes that stared with a little too much intent, in an eerily glowing way that was almost reminiscent of the ender dragon’s. 

“Yeah,” Zedaph mumbled. “What are you doing in my base?”

“Checking up on you,” Impulse said. “Since you were, you know, not responding to any messages for 3 days.”

“Has it been that long?” Zedaph asked, but he already knew. Of course it has.

Impulse nodded.

“Oh. Well, I’m fine.”

“Zedaph, what happened?” Impulse asked as he leaned closer. “When I came here you definitely did not look fine. Your skin was all pale and you kept muttering about dragons and death in your sleep.”

“Well, I-”

Zedaph sighed, and began telling him the story.

* * *

“So what have you learned?” Impulse finally asked when he was finished. His eyebrows had twitched hilariously as Zedaph had recounted his story, as if they were conducting some dramatic symphony of the tale. And certain parts was a roll of his eyes that seemed _too_ expecting-

Hm, perhaps Zedaph should look into that. He knew Impulse, and there was certainly something being left unsaid there-

“Zedaph?”

Oh, right. What _had_ he learned?

“Well, you can possess any mob, I think. All of them,” Zedaph said. 

Wait, did that mean he could possess Scar, or Doc, or Jevin? That would be an interesting experiment to try for sure.

Impulse eyed him once again, and Zedaph felt himself almost squirming.

“Uh, boss mobs respond to possession differently? With a degree of autonomy?” Zedaph paused, and tilted his head. “Oh! And dragon powers are super cool, we could probably build a farm with that idea. Wouldn’t that be _amazing?_ ”

Right! He had nearly forgotten, with everything, but there was still so much to test out! He fumbled with his blankets for a few moments, moving his feet out and slipping into his shoes.

 _“Zedaph,”_ Impulse said slowly, and he had the feeling he was missing something obvious again.

“Yes?” Zedaph elected to ask.

Impulse remained silent. The stare said more than enough.

“...I was curious!” Zedaph finally protested, throwing his arms up. “You _know_ the things I do for science. I’m not scared of a little trap here or there!”

Really, Zedaph learned so much, but he also learned so _little._ And he was perfectly fine with that!

Impulse sighed, long and suffering, and Zedaph had lost count of how often he’d heard it. 

“Ideally, I don’t want you to possess the ender dragon ever again. But I know you can’t help yourself, and it’s not really my job to tell you what you can or can’t do, so please at least tell someone before you go doing something stupid next time?”

“It sounded like a good idea at the time,” Zedaph said.

Impulse gave him a withering glare. 

“That’s what you always say.”

Zedaph shrunk back.

“Okay, okay,” he grumbled, though something warmed inside of him. He knew he could always count on his friends, even when he got into stupid trouble like this. It was a comforting thought.

“Can I go and… do stuff now?”

“Sure,” Impulse said, huffing. “Don’t let me stop you from your fun.”

Zedaph let out a loud cheer, and rushed forward to hug Impulse tightly. 

“Zed-”

“Celebration!” he yelled.

“Good to see you’re back to normal, at least,” Impulse wheezed slightly from under him.

Zedaph grinned, pulling away.

“Right! Time to try the Wither next!”

“ _What_ \- I take that back!”

**Author's Note:**

> Hoped you enjoyed your Secret Santa gift, Leo! And to anyone else who's read this far - let me know what you thought?


End file.
